


Reflections

by DarkHeartInTheSky



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel Angst, Character Study, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 03:54:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7151975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkHeartInTheSky/pseuds/DarkHeartInTheSky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who Cas used to be wouldn't approve of what he's become.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reflections

                The horrendous ache in his head woke him up. Cas peeled his eyes open, fingernails scrapping against hard concrete. He pushed himself to his knees, holding back a groan.

                He blinked. His vision struggled to focus. His head hurt so bad.

                He did not know this room. He did not remember how he came to be in this room. He had been hunting with Sam and Dean. A small town had been struck with a large number of sudden suicides, after the victims seemed to spiral into a sudden state of self-loathing. A witch, they thought.

                But Cas couldn’t remember anything after they drove into the town. Had they found the witch?

                Cas stood. The room was incredibly small; he could touch both walls with his hands. But they weren’t walls. They were mirrors. The floor and ceiling too.

                It was disorientating to stare at his own face. It was his face now, this body as much his own as his wings and halo. Maybe more, he thought sadly, thinking of the near constant ache he carried in his wings and how his halo barely shone, just a dim light lost in the night.

                He swallowed thickly.

                The reflection did not swallow.

                Cas squinted and leaned forward. Actually, now that he was close, the reflection didn’t look very much like him at all. The reflection looked meaner; something danced in its eyes, a storm of fury and powerful righteousness.

                The reflection tilted its head. “Who are you?” It said.

                Cas’s hand fell by his side. “I am you.”

                The reflection stood even straighter, held its chin up high. “I am Castiel,” it said sternly. Suddenly, two large, dark wings appeared from behind its back. They arched over its head and Cas’s heart dropped into his stomach with pain. His wings used to look like that, years ago; he used to walk with them arching off his back like that, with the power radiating through them like lightning.

                He tucked his own disfigured wings closer to his back.

                “You are not me,” Castiel said with disgust. “Look at yourself! Are you even an angel?”

                Cas took a step back, but there was no way to go. The reflection surrounded him on every side, above and below, that burning stare inescapable. He understood now. This reflection was not him, but who he used to be.

                Did he really use to look like that? That cruel?

                Cas forced himself to stand straighter and look the reflection in the eye. “Yes,” he said. “I am an angel of the Lord.”

                Castiel’s face darkened. “You’re an abomination. Fallen. You are not me.”

                “No,” Cas said with a sigh. It seemed so long ago that he was this figure in the mirror. Sure of himself, of his mission and duty. Before he felt doubt, before he felt true pain and abandonment. “You’re not. But you will be.”

                Give it time, Castiel would learn the truth about Heaven and Father, the Apocalypse, emotion.

                Castiel’s face scowled into disgust and rage. “I will never become you,” he said, horror thickly veiled in his voice. “You’re _Fallen._ I will never….”

                Cas smiled humorlessly. “You still have much to learn, it seems. In time, you will have a decision to make. You will make the right one.”

                Because though Falling, and being disconnected from the Host had brought agony to Cas, even though free will was devastating and a constant, heavy burden to carry, even though emotions were tumultuous and overwhelming, when Cas felt like they were drowning him and crushing him, he wouldn’t go back and make the other choice. He made the right one.

               (Hadn’t he?)

                Because he learned the truth about Heaven and Hell, and Father; about emotions and free will, friendship and family. Dean would tell him, you can’t have the good without the bad, and how could Cas know warmth without ever being cold, joy without knowing despair?

                (How could he miss what he did not know?)

                “There are no decisions,” Castiel spat. “There is only the will of God.”

                Cas understood now how Dean had been so impatient with him. “What does the will of God call for?”

                “The Apocalypse.”

                “No,” Cas said. How could he have once been this creature? This callous? “The Apocalypse…it doesn’t have to be. It didn’t happen.”

                “You tampered with the Word. You defied _God._ ” A clinking noise echoed through the tiny chamber. Castiel’s angel blade rested between his fingertips. “You’re no better than Lucifer. I should kill you where you stand.”

                Cas’s throat tightened. This was really him, what he once was. Cas looked down at his hands and clenched a fist. He did not have the power that Castiel had, the confidence and assurance. Castiel knew he was doing the right thing; Cas was constantly unsure of each action he performed. He longed for the assurance Castiel had. It was something he hadn’t had in a long time. Something he missed as he drove across the country alone, searching from vague lead to vague lead about the Mark.

“God doesn’t care,” Cas said. Castiel’s face shifted minutely—something sudden and subtle, and then it was gone, concealed again with the anger Cas once carried in himself. “I tried. I looked everywhere and—“ Emotions clogged in Cas’s throat, choking him. He couldn’t get the words out. They were stuck. His eyes burned. Castiel’s face was overcome with disgust.

                “Despicable,” Castiel said, white-knuckling his blade. “You not only defy God, but now you doubt him too?”

                Cas thought of his search for his father; how he scavenged every corner of the Earth, the far ends of the galaxy; how he prayed and prayed for guidance on the war with Raphael, and got nothing. When he tried to atone for his sins from that war, redeem himself to Dean and Sam, and failed even worse. Praying on that motel floor and getting captured and tortured by his own brothers. Even now, when the sun set heavy and Cas was no closer to finding a cure for the Mark of Cain, he would still look to the sky and mutter under his breath for his Father, hoping beyond hope, believing to the thinnest modicum of his cells.

                And nothing.

                Cas pitied Castiel, who knew nothing.

                Cas envied Castiel, who still had a mission, something to believe in, a blind faith that was endearing and empowering. Cas missed having that.

                “I don’t understand,” Castiel said. “If you were having doubts, why didn’t the angels help you? Did you not share your concerns with your brothers? They would have led back to the righteous path.”

                “There is no righteous path,” Cas said. “And the angels…” He didn’t need to breath, yet he was panting as he remembered how the angels tried to “help” him, how Zachariah had him chained down, how he…

                “You turned away from your brothers too?”

                “They turned away from me!” Cas yelled. “They threw me out, they disowned me, they tortured me….”

                (“I’m not angel”.)

                Cas sunk to his knees. Castiel stared down at him disdainfully.

                “You must have deserved it,” Castiel said. “Was your free will worth it? You’re miserable. I can smell it off you. You should let me end your pain; if anyone else had committed the deeds you have—“

                He was right. Cas shuddered. Years ago, he would’ve (and had) spat upon the Fallen, had sat in wordless approval of the execution of angels whose crimes were far less than his own.

                (“I deserved to die”.)

                Cas wondered about the metaphysics of killing one’s future self.

                Castiel raised his blade and it came out through the mirror. Cas could touch it if he wanted.

                Maybe Castiel was right; what had free will brought Cas but pain? What had Cas brought the world but destruction?

                Free will wasn’t meant for angels.

                (“I’m afraid I might kill myself”.)

                Cas stood still as the blade came towards him—

\---

                He awoke to tight arms wrapped around his chest, warm breath beside his ear.

                “Ding dong,” Sam panted. “How’s his head? Is it still bleeding?”

                “Shit,” Dean said. “Cas, are you okay? Are you awake?”

                He could feel his heartbeat in his temples. He was alive.

                 Cas’s body shook with violent sobs.


End file.
